Golf Charlie, those power outages aren't supposed to happen. Your 'smart' appliance won't turn on until the peak is over. So your car will be part charged when you set off the next day, you'll be freezing cold until midnight and it'll be lukewarm sandwiches and salmonella for dinner. You will be able to watch Eastenders on your phone, where BBC mockney characters (all the real ones having moved out) will sing the virtues of a low CO2 life.

Harry Passfield, everybody driving home from work, in electric cars, plugging them in to charge, and then putting the kettle on, plus lights, TV, electric oven, washing machine, electric central heating etc at the same time, what could possibly go wrong?

Those involved in the restoration of electrical supplies following power outages are never going to get a moments peace to watch Eastenders or Coronation Street again. There again, no one else will either.

MST = Mistress of Stupid Testimony perhaps.

BTW: I see that Nicola Shaw is a BA (don't know what in) and an MST. I had to look up that. Seems she got it from MIT and it seems to mean Master of Science in Teaching. Unless someone knows better.

In the R4 TODAY piece with Nicola Shaw and the MD of Aggregates (something or other) I was taken by the nonsense of many things that were said. Did anyone else choke on the incredulity of the MD of the the company making Bitumen claiming that she was doing her bit for lowering carbon?
Did anyone else wonder just how insurance companies are going to react to homes filled with batteries constantly being charged and discharged?
And, when Nicola Shaw banged on about smart energy use to match the needs of the 21st century - which, she said, included electric vehicles - didn't she think for one minute that a surge in the take up of electric vehicles will totally screw her plans (if indeed she has any) for how the grid is going to deliver power from non-existent power stations.

At least I managed to start the day by shouting at Horrible.

Phillip Bratby. Complacency isn't half of it, it's more like fantasy. All we can hope for in energy policy is an application of emergency brakes and a U-turn in the face of the Green juggernaut. Can't see it happening myself.

ACK, fibre glass boats, cars etc do burn, but the actual raw fibres do not. It is the resin binders that burn with copious amounts of acrid fumes.

The Flash Point Temperature of the liquid resins is lower than that of a hot bath. DIY fibreglassing repairs, or canoe building etc has burnt down a lot of garden sheds etc.

In other words, we need to ration our use of electricity, or have it rationed for us, because our National suppliers of electricity can not provide us with supplies that are reliable, having relied on the Green Blob for energy advice.

Could we try compulsory power cuts for the Green Blob experts and their employers, and see if anybody notices?

At the very least, Smart Meters should be programmed to cut their supplies, at the first signs of supply shortfall, I really don't think it will damage the economy or productivity at all, in fact, it may even improve.

All these plans also totally ignore logical time frams. a) the equipment doesn't yet exist, b) people need to agree to those new restrictions c) all the bugs need to be sorted d) it takes between 10 and 20 years to replace appliances. How's that going to solve energy shotages in the next 20-30 years.

And that's just domestic energy use. Business energy consumption is much harder to restructure.